Planned Parenthood baby parts video shows that babies are being harvested when they can feel pain

The ninth video from the Center for Medical Progress has just been released, and it is as horrifying as the previous eight videos.

This time, we’re introduced to Perrin Larton, procurement manager for Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. (ABR), a company that has been harvesting and selling the body parts of aborted babies longer than anyone else – except, perhaps, its partner, Planned Parenthood. Also featured is the former medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, Dr. Katharine Sheehan. In the video, Larton discusses how their staffers wait outside the room as the abortion is being performed, and harvest the body parts of babies aborted at 20 and 21 weeks of pregnancy.

While the practice of harvesting the body parts of aborted babies is gruesome and sickening no matter the age of the baby, it is inexplicably horrible at 20 weeks. At this age, the baby can scientifically feel pain. While science also points to babies experiencing pain as early as 5.5 weeks, the medical evidence is virtually indisputable at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

At 20 weeks, pain receptors are present throughout the baby’s body, and nerves are able to link these receptors to the baby’s brain. The baby can be seen reacting to stimuli that could be recognized as painful, by doing things like recoiling. Increases in stress hormones can be seen when the baby experiences painful stimuli. And while the abortion lobby tries hard to dismiss this as junk science, the reality is that it is just the opposite. In fact, doctors who perform fetal surgery use anesthesia on a routine basis – why would this be necessary if the baby could not feel pain?

The vast majority of people recognize the humanity of the preborn baby at 20 weeks. By 20 weeks, the baby can hear noises and recognize his mother’s voice. The baby will actually react to loud sounds, and noises that she becomes accustomed to hearing in the womb will be soothing to her when she is born. Other sensory development takes place as well – all five senses are being developed in the baby’s brain. And by 20 weeks, most women have already been able to feel their baby kicking and moving. The baby has also started swallowing, and her body begins producing meconium.

One additional week may not seem to make a big difference, but a week can do a lot during pregnancy. At 21 weeks, the baby is making blood cells and their small intestine begins absorbing sugars that they gain from swallowing amniotic fluid. The baby’s taste buds have begun developing too, and she will start to learn what kinds of foods she likes or dislikes, thanks to the changing taste of the amniotic fluid, which is influenced by what her mother is eating.

At least two babies have been documented as surviving outside of the womb at 21 weeks. James Gill and Amillia Taylor were both born at 21 weeks of pregnancy, and both survived. While 24 weeks is generally considered to be the point of viability, when the baby is more likely to survive than not, as medicine advances, babies are able to survive being born at younger and younger gestational ages.

Disturbingly, in the video, Larton describes how babies just “fall out” of the vaginal canal, presumably alive. California law mandates that a baby born alive be given medical care, but it seems highly unlikely that this would happen when there are vultures waiting outside of the room to harvest the baby’s organs – as Larton also describes doing. These are human beings, who have inherent worth and value, yet they’re being treated as objects to be ripped apart and sold.

The scandal surrounding Planned Parenthood’s sale of the body parts of preborn babies has caused arguably the biggest backlash the abortion chain has ever had to deal with. Multiple states have defunded Planned Parenthood and opened investigations, and the majority of lawmakers in the Senate voted to defund the abortion giant as well (though the vote fell short of the required 60 votes).

Currently, Planned Parenthood receives over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding each year, despite continued evidence that it preys upon babies of all ages, including those who can feel pain and live on their own outside the womb.